Ryan Family Farmhttps://ryanfamilyfarm.com
Growing real food in beautiful Graham, WAFri, 09 Nov 2018 20:36:14 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8https://i1.wp.com/ryanfamilyfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/cropped-LOGO3-1-e1512789935207.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1Ryan Family Farmhttps://ryanfamilyfarm.com
3232Heritage Livestock Conference Updatehttps://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/11/09/heritage-livestock-conference-update/
https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/11/09/heritage-livestock-conference-update/#respondFri, 09 Nov 2018 20:36:14 +0000https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/?p=612Heritage Livestock Conference Update I travelled to Fishers, IN to attend the 2018 Heritage Livestock Conference organized by The Livestock Conservancy. It has been a great learning experience so far and the actual conference hasn’t even started! Today I attended a conference workshop – “oxen basics” and it was a chance to learn a bit… Read more

I travelled to Fishers, IN to attend the 2018 Heritage Livestock Conference organized by The Livestock Conservancy. It has been a great learning experience so far and the actual conference hasn’t even started! Today I attended a conference workshop – “oxen basics” and it was a chance to learn a bit about driving a team of oxen including some hands-on practice (although I opted to watch). Last night at the welcome reception I met other farmers that share our interest in preserving heritage breeds. I’ve been getting an understanding of how others raise and market their animals and have been learning about various breeds that people are championing. The actual conference starts Saturday, and I’ll continue to explore other breeds and how to raise them with the goal of starting to raise our own sheep in 2019.

A Heritage Breed English Longhorn Steer, one of the two oxen we worked with today.

The conference itself is held at Conner Prairie, an educational interactive history farm/museum. They raise a number of breeds here on the farm, and today we were working with English Longhorn cattle and got to watch an Ossabow sow and her piglets while out with the oxen.

Two young bulls, learning ox stuff

Learning how to drive the oxen

And of course, much thanks (and love) to Erica who is shouldering all of the workload while I’m gone, including having to deal with emergency electrician call for repairs to restore power to our house!

]]>https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/11/09/heritage-livestock-conference-update/feed/0Summer Update and Check-Inhttps://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/08/26/summer-update/
https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/08/26/summer-update/#respondSun, 26 Aug 2018 16:10:40 +0000https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/?p=584Summer Update and Check-In Whew! We’ve been way too busy to find time to keep up with the blog and website. For that we’re sorry. It’s hard to believe that Summer is almost over – and still so much to do! I wanted to take a minute to catch you up with what we’ve been… Read more

Whew! We’ve been way too busy to find time to keep up with the blog and website. For that we’re sorry. It’s hard to believe that Summer is almost over – and still so much to do! I wanted to take a minute to catch you up with what we’ve been up to, what we’ve been learning, and what we have planned going forward. To make things somewhat easier, I’ve broken the post down by our various enterprises/endevors. Hopefully that makes things easier to follow (it helps me organize my thoughts anyway).

Eggs:

The laying flock is growing. We added another 8 Welsummer pullets and the batch of pullets we added in Spring have started to lay. The heat has been a challenge, lowering production a bit and adding labor with having to supply so much fresh water. We’re thankful to have a core group of loyal customers to provide fresh eggs from our flock of heritage breed hens.

We recently added secure feed storage so we can order feed in bulk (from Scratch and Peck Feeds in Burlington WA). The birds love the feed and our customers love that the feed is locally sourced, organically raised, and non-GMO.

We plan to breed replacement hens from our own stock. We currently have roosters we will mate with the best hens from the breeds we will continue to raise: Cukoo Marans, Barred Plymouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Buff Brahmas, Easter Eggers). Currently we plan to have baby chicks before the weather turns cold and wet to make brooding easier. It is possible we will have chicks to sell, so stay tuned for updates! (Promise that we will have more updates coming!)

Turkeys:

We successfully raised 15 poults from our own stock of Bourbon Reds. Unfortunately, we lost a hen after she was crushed by an overly amourous Tom, leaving us with two hens and a tom from our original flock. We will be selecting the best hens and toms from this mating to build up our breeding program and plan on hatching more next Spring. We don’t plan on selling any meat turkeys this year but might next year, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. (I still have to edit and post the video about hatching our turkeys from earlier in the year!) Also, the turkeys recently hatched out four more poults on their own, so we should have a good sized flock next year.

Ducks:

Our new flock of Saxony ducks are growing up so quickly and doing well! They are currently living with the young turkeys but will be separated before the Fall. The turkeys will be moved to the pastures once they are full sized. We are looking forward to having fresh duck eggs to sell and will be posting as soon as they are available. Long term we will be growing the flock and breeding the best and culling to maintain the breed standard. The duck coop is a former chicken coop and we’ve made some modifications for the ducks like new nest boxes, added ventilation, and improved the outdoor run.

Vegetables/Fruit:

The market garden is going strong! We have a small CSA that has kept us very busy. It has been a great learning experience and has helped us see where we need to put our efforts going forward. We broke ground on the garden two years ago and began working on building up the soil. Since the area was in pasture, there is a deep weed seed bed which has been a challenge. Another challenge has been planning for when to plant and how much to plant to ensure a good harvest. We delayed the start of deliveries due to weather and the wet soil. Thankfully we added drip irrigation early on so the hot and dry conditions this Summer haven’t been too bad. Our biggest challenge has been in delivery – we had hoped to have a central drop-off point for most of our customers but ended up doing mostly home delivery. We won’t be doing this next year, at least not without adding a delivery fee to cover the added time and expense.

Plans for the Fall/Winter and beyond:

Our 1950 Ford 8N tractor has been down for most of the season, mostly due to lack of time to fix it. I am slowly getting it back up and running so I can mow and reseed the pastures to accommodate moving the birds and grazing them next year. We will be working on the fences and gates, replacing rotten posts and rusted gates with the goal of grazing animals next Spring. We will likely start with sheep but also plan on grazing pigs. The birds will follow the animals, helping distribute the manure and eat the bugs, increasing soil fertility and health of the pastures overall.

We will be adding more plantings to help with pollination and provide habitat for benefical insects and birds. We have had great luck this year with insect control by companion planting to attract beneficial insects and birds. Downside to this is that the birds have been pulling up young sprouts (until I got smart and used floating row covers to prevent access). We will be adding owl and bat nest boxes to provide added habitat and pest control. I love finding owl pellets near our chicken coops and seeing tiny rodent bones!

Eventually we will revisit the Hugelkulur bed and plant strawberries. This Spring we planted blueberries, blackberry, fig and pomegranate. Our plan includes adding grapes, more herbs and flowers, and replacing the peach trees which are overgrown and produce poorly. This area will likely benefit from building a stone-walled path using the (seemingly endless) supply of rocks picked from the garden and pastures.

So, thanks for keeping us busy! We will make sure to update more frequently. We also post on Instagram if you want to see what we’re up to. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions – we love hearing from you!

]]>https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/08/26/summer-update/feed/0Spring Update – Full Steam Ahead!https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/05/31/full-steam-ahead/
https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/05/31/full-steam-ahead/#respondThu, 31 May 2018 14:50:52 +0000https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/?p=571Spring update – Full Steam Ahead! Veggies Well it is ON! The Sun is out and has dried out the garden enough that we have been planting and now have a bunch of plants growing in the ground. Our 20-week CSA starts delivery this week – we delayed two weeks due to the weather –… Read more

Veggies

Well it is ON! The Sun is out and has dried out the garden enough that we have been planting and now have a bunch of plants growing in the ground. Our 20-week CSA starts delivery this week – we delayed two weeks due to the weather – and there’s lots of great veggies on the way!

The garden in Spring

Birds! Birds! Birds!

We have 11 new ducks and 15 new turkeys that are growing up quickly! Both are almost fully feathered and are enjoying their new home in the coop and are discovering the outside. I am way behind in posting and am planning on finishing up a video about the turkeys. We filmed the process from putting the eggs in the incubator all the way to hatching. I’ll get it edited and posted soon – in my “free time.”

Our new Saxony ducks

The chickens are enjoying the newly planted Omega-3 seed mix we added to their run. The hens are laying consistently and the batch of eggs we hatched turned out to be mostly roosters! We are planning on separating the ones we plan to breed and will cull the rest to make room for more hens.

The Ladies enjoying fresh grass

While our CSA is sold out, we do have fresh eggs for sale. You can order here and we will arrange local pick-up or delivery if within our delivery area.

]]>https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/05/31/full-steam-ahead/feed/0Earth Day Event Cancelled :(https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/04/16/earth-day-event-cancelled/
https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/04/16/earth-day-event-cancelled/#respondMon, 16 Apr 2018 02:34:09 +0000https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/?p=562Earth Day Event Cancelled Unfortunately our planned Earth Day Event is cancelled. Due to the the weather and poor conditions, we have to focus on planting the garden and moving the birds out on pasture. We are working on a Summer Event and will email details to all of our customers to thank them for… Read more

]]>https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/04/16/earth-day-event-cancelled/feed/0We sold out!https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/04/08/we-sold-out/
https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/04/08/we-sold-out/#respondSun, 08 Apr 2018 22:18:07 +0000http://ryanfamilyfarm.com/?p=550We sold out! Thank you to everyone who joined this year’s CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)! We don’t want to you miss out next year, so make sure to get on our 2019 CSA Interest List to get early-bird pricing and a chance to sign up before the general public! In the meantime, follow our blog… Read more

We’ve been collecting eggs from our Bourbon Red Turkeys for the last 2 weeks and it’s finally time to start incubating them! Turkey eggs incubate for 27.5 – 28 days (unlike chickens at about 21 days). Otherwise, the process is about the same. We collected fertile eggs and stored them in our garage at about 50-60F. The goal is to expand the flock and breedings to have a self-sufficient flock of Thanksgiving/Christmas birds by 2019.

]]>https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/04/02/incubating-turkey-eggs/feed/1Public Service Announcement: Pull the Stickers Off!https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/24/public-service-announcement-pull-the-stickers-off/
https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/24/public-service-announcement-pull-the-stickers-off/#respondSat, 24 Mar 2018 07:30:21 +0000http://ryanfamilyfarm.com/?p=515Public Service Announcement: Pull the Stickers Off! We recently amended our garden beds with Cascade Compost which is compost made from the food waste consumers generate in our area. Cascade Compost is a Registered Organic material with the Washington State Department of Agriculture and will improve our soil tilth while reusing what otherwise would end up… Read more

We recently amended our garden beds with Cascade Compost which is compost made from the food waste consumers generate in our area. Cascade Compost is a Registered Organic material with the Washington State Department of Agriculture and will improve our soil tilth while reusing what otherwise would end up as waste. However, those little stickers on your fruit and veggies are not compostable! We first realized this using our vermicompost bins (worm bins), and noticed that the worms did a great job digesting everything but those darn stickers. Same goes for traditional composting. The microbes that digest food waste don’t digest plastic stickers or plastic bags which unfortunately sometimes end up in the finished compost. Of course the best option would be to not use the stickers in the first place, but since stores still use them it’s up to us to do our part. Thanks!

]]>https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/24/public-service-announcement-pull-the-stickers-off/feed/0An early Easter Egg(er) hunt!https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/24/early-easter-hunt/
https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/24/early-easter-hunt/#respondSat, 24 Mar 2018 01:18:28 +0000http://ryanfamilyfarm.com/?p=523An early Easter Egg(er) Hunt! So the other evening while we were out collecting eggs, I looked up and noticed some feathers sticking out between the old boards under the eaves. I first thought that it was just a birds nest since we have some barn swallows that have nested in the barn before. Upon… Read more

So the other evening while we were out collecting eggs, I looked up and noticed some feathers sticking out between the old boards under the eaves. I first thought that it was just a birds nest since we have some barn swallows that have nested in the barn before. Upon a closer look, I saw what appeared to be eggs. It seems that some of the Easter Eggers have been flying up into the rafters and making a nest in the eaves. I went up in there yesterday and puled out 59 eggs from 3 locations! Now we know why (we thought) the Easter Eggers weren’t laying so well! It’s a little early for an Easter egg hunt!

It’s an egg hunt!

In other egg news, the turkeys are laying! We started getting eggs around the 14th, and now are getting 2-3 a day. We plan on collecting until we have enough for a full incubator, using only the most recent eggs. If all goes as plans, our flock will be much larger by Summer! We haven’t decided if we will sell them or not. We will decide after we see the numbers and how many males we need to cull. We may just hold back for breeding more again next Spring so there will be plenty to sell come Thanksgiving 2019. Stay tuned!

]]>https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/24/early-easter-hunt/feed/0Article: 1/5 of Americans responsible for 1/2 of the country’s food-based emissionshttps://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/21/article-1-5-of-americans-responsible-for-1-2-of-the-countrys-food-based-emissions/
https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/21/article-1-5-of-americans-responsible-for-1-2-of-the-countrys-food-based-emissions/#respondWed, 21 Mar 2018 15:35:56 +0000http://ryanfamilyfarm.com/?p=500One-fifth of Americans are responsible for half the country’s food-based emissions A recent article in Popular Science highlights the effect our food choices have on emissions and climate change.One way consumers can see how to make more climate-conscious choices mentioned in the article is the Better Buying Lab from the World Resources Institute – worth… Read more

]]>One-fifth of Americans are responsible for half the country’s food-based emissions

A recent article in Popular Science highlights the effect our food choices have on emissions and climate change.One way consumers can see how to make more climate-conscious choices mentioned in the article is the Better Buying Lab from the World Resources Institute – worth checking out!

We work hard to minimize our impact by limiting the use of gasoline powered equipment, shopping locally, and not using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for example.

Do you know how your tomatoes are grown?

And figuring out how many tons of carbon dioxide get emitted from a single serving of tomatoes is no small task. That process, called life cycle analysis, involves understanding the agricultural processes required at every step of a tomato’s life before it leaves the farm. That includes how much fuel the tractor uses in the field, but also how much energy goes into making the fertilizer and pesticides. Fertilizer, Heller explains, is often one of the bigger contributors. It’s an energy-intensive process that requires making ammonia, and to make ammonia we often use natural gas, so the life cycle analysis for a tomato has to include the natural gas drilling required to make the fertilizer that went into the soil to grow the fruit. And then it also has to include the emissions created by that fertilized soil. Ammonia increases the amount of nitrogen in soil, and that excess nitrogen has the unfortunate side effect of promoting nitrous oxide production. Heller notes that nitrous oxide has 300 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, and it’s unavoidably created whenever you fertilize soil.

]]>https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/21/article-1-5-of-americans-responsible-for-1-2-of-the-countrys-food-based-emissions/feed/0There’s still time to sign up for eggs!https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/10/theres-still-time-to-sign-up-for-eggs/
https://ryanfamilyfarm.com/2018/03/10/theres-still-time-to-sign-up-for-eggs/#respondSat, 10 Mar 2018 04:40:59 +0000http://ryanfamilyfarm.com/?p=488There’s still time to sign up for eggs! Price adjusted to reflect remaining weeks Hi all! We are still selling egg subscriptions and have adjusted the price to reflect the remaining weeks left (as of this weekend, 23 weeks remain). We are delivering on Saturday this weekend (week 2) and have subscriptions available for those… Read more

Price adjusted to reflect remaining weeks

Hi all! We are still selling egg subscriptions and have adjusted the price to reflect the remaining weeks left (as of this weekend, 23 weeks remain).

We are delivering on Saturday this weekend (week 2) and have subscriptions available for those who may have missed out at the start. Don’t fret! We will continue to sell subscriptions, adjusting the price accordingly. As always, we’d love to hear from you if you have any questions or just want to learn more.